Newt wrote:
Spitz Mcgee Wrote:
You have all be so great to help me out! This hedge will be my
only opportunity to block out the sights and more importantly
sounds of the busy rural highway. It is full sun and the house is
atleast 50 ft away
from the mound at its closest point. I am trying to minimize the
negative effect on my future resale because I am the only house in
the neighborhood with property line on this busy road.


Spitz, you are so very welcome! As to the space, I actually was
referring to the width of the mound, but you can still plant on the
slope of it. With that much space I would suggest that you try and
do your tallest plantings in groups of 3 or 5 and place each group
in a staggered pattern, with the taller plantings at the end points
like this: W Do consider the ultimate mature width and height. I
would place the smaller shrubs and flowers on the house side of the
screen for esthetics from your property. That is where you will
need to determine the shade as the taller evergreen trees grow. If
the sun will pass from north to south or east to west, you will
need to know how much sun those shrubs and flowers will get after
the trees are planted. If the house side of the planting will be
north, that will limit what shrubs you can plant.

There are some wonderful vibrunums with flowers in the spring and
berries for the birds. Some grow quite wide but most are not
evergreen, especially in your zone 5 location. Here's a site about
them.
http://tinyurl.com/999s9

One of the loveliest viburnums is the Viburnum plicatum var.
tomentosum and they're hardy in your zone. Also known as doublefile
viburnum because it blooms in clusters along the horizontal stems
with a row of blossoms on each side of the stem, creating a double
row. Consider Viburnum plicatum 'Summer Snowflake' that gets up to
10' tall but only 6' wide, or it's larger cousin Viburnum plicatum
'Shasta'. There is even a variegated 'Shasta' now. Shasta can get
quite wide, and in front of a group of three hollies, you would
only need one to knock your socks off when it's mature in size and
in bloom. The 'tomentosum' viburnums have layerd branches and
sometimes people think they are some type of dogwood tree.
http://tinyurl.com/crxcd

In five years a one gallon pot (if you can find one that small) will
probably have doubled in size. Larger ones may take a little longer.
Figure when planting the saying: "The first year they sleep, the
second year they creep and the third year they leap." It will take
them a year to establish their root systems and you will need to
water, in the winter too if there's no snow cover and it's dry. Of
course if you get lake effect snow, no problem. You'll just have
to worry about drying winds!

Newt

The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8
Sunset Zone 5